I have to chip in re the comments on mana fixing too. I felt like I was struggling to pick much up, might be worth another look?
Sigh, a Cube
- Thread starter sigh
- Start date
Yeah, looks are being had. I might be throwing in, like, 5 enemy filters to start. Either going to 410 or at the expense of more utility lands.
I had a few minutes so I spammed a bunch of quick drafts. I don't promise they were optimal, but a few thoughts:
- Power variance: I see pieces of the sacrifice aggro deck. I see pieces of the prowess deck. I see a few pieces of other small themes (artifacts/enchantments/lands-graveyard stuff... I haven't been following the temur thread too carefully). And then I pick Frost Titan into packrat into lanquish and proceed to ignore everything cool. Its hard to justify taking synergy when the high power cards are so strong. I have skimmed that thread, and I got the impression that you want to make midrange more interesting? From making custom cards and testing, one thing I've found is that when you remove the "pure value" option from midrange, its forced to fit in the gaps between aggro and control in a more natural way (R/G or G/W stompy midrange vs G/U/x grindy midrange, etc.) When you can just take one card bombs, you don't have to make that speed choice. Everything is good throughout the curve and your opponent has to deal with/fall behind dealing with each card.
- Lands: I definitely got fixing, but it feels a bit awkward. I guess I lean towards 2.5-3 color decks as being the norm in my cube (excluding aggro). The fetch-shock paradigm works extremely well for this and is obvious while drafting. I felt like a lot of the time, I would get a fetchland, but nothing good to fetch with it when I was drafting. If you want 2 color decks, this is fine. But I get the feeling that for your slower decks, you want them to be reaching into third colors for specific cards. I tried, but it felt questionable in a lot of cases. (also, a completely unscientific gut feeling said you had mono color cards with high color commitment than I'm used to, but I could be off on this.)
- Blue/prowess.dek: I felt like the blue creatures are certainly good, but that I was actually coming up a bit short on spells. You have a fair number in blue, but not a ton. And then the other two colors (R/W) that normally play support are also kinda light on noncreature spells I want for that deck.
- Power variance: I see pieces of the sacrifice aggro deck. I see pieces of the prowess deck. I see a few pieces of other small themes (artifacts/enchantments/lands-graveyard stuff... I haven't been following the temur thread too carefully). And then I pick Frost Titan into packrat into lanquish and proceed to ignore everything cool. Its hard to justify taking synergy when the high power cards are so strong. I have skimmed that thread, and I got the impression that you want to make midrange more interesting? From making custom cards and testing, one thing I've found is that when you remove the "pure value" option from midrange, its forced to fit in the gaps between aggro and control in a more natural way (R/G or G/W stompy midrange vs G/U/x grindy midrange, etc.) When you can just take one card bombs, you don't have to make that speed choice. Everything is good throughout the curve and your opponent has to deal with/fall behind dealing with each card.
- Lands: I definitely got fixing, but it feels a bit awkward. I guess I lean towards 2.5-3 color decks as being the norm in my cube (excluding aggro). The fetch-shock paradigm works extremely well for this and is obvious while drafting. I felt like a lot of the time, I would get a fetchland, but nothing good to fetch with it when I was drafting. If you want 2 color decks, this is fine. But I get the feeling that for your slower decks, you want them to be reaching into third colors for specific cards. I tried, but it felt questionable in a lot of cases. (also, a completely unscientific gut feeling said you had mono color cards with high color commitment than I'm used to, but I could be off on this.)
- Blue/prowess.dek: I felt like the blue creatures are certainly good, but that I was actually coming up a bit short on spells. You have a fair number in blue, but not a ton. And then the other two colors (R/W) that normally play support are also kinda light on noncreature spells I want for that deck.
Thank you for the drafts! Lots of good thoughts put out there. I'm working to reverse some interesting power creep issues that have sprung up for some reason or another. Pack Rat specifically is on the chopping block, but I can see arguments for other cards beyond that, of course. My plan for fixing being filters would also solve the high count of CC cards, whatever that level might be. Curving C into DD is a sweet deal using filters and helps a lot with this particular problem, among others. Interesting on the noncreature spell count. I'll have to check that out.
So I have an absolutely ludicrous amount of data, drafts, posts, and whatnot to sort through. Gotta start somewhere, so I'll start off with the 5-man draft I had yesterday. Would have wanted a 6th, or even seventh, but I can't stop people from bailing. Had a great time with the drafting, decided once and for all once and for all about some OP cards, and got some really whacko games in.
The games ended up being a 3-way I was part of, with a 1-on-1 next to us... then a reverse of that, with me part of a 1-on-1 with one of the previous 1-on-1 people.... and then a five way multiplayer game. Wild ride of games, that's for sure. Got a lot of nice comments out of the blue about how nice and awesome my cube was, which was a tremendous feeling.
Also ended up having two decks with
in them, which felt like a personal victory of some sort. I mean, one of them was mine, because I usualy end up in some blue deck or another, but another blue deck, and it wasn't just a control deck?! Yay~
Anyway, here's the decks we came up with and how they played out! Interestingly, there was a lot of overlap in deck themes, but everyone's deck turned out decent at worst! Nice
The usual format-stormer came out strong again yesterday, as is his modus operandi. This deck is one that I want to talk a little about. He drafted a truly mean GB grindfest deck, with some bombs in the form of GitGud toad, and Soul of Innistrad (who you all should consider, it's awesome), but flushed out the curve with value-generating green creatures backed up by grindy B engines. If there's any immediate signs of victory with the Temur Advantage investigation, it's his deck. It's not RG, but it was still a very control-oriented green deck with a large suit of card advantage options, combined with some powerful finishers. Love love love it! Also, this is the deck that won me over against Pack Rat. Card's busted.
Now, as I'm discovering, it's hard to end up calling this sort of deck "control". It had a very big beatdown plan if needed, but I didn't generally see game work out that way. His main lines of play were to get out and stall/build advantage with his suite of 2-drops, and then generate insurmountable leads with things like Blood Artist, Soul of Innistrad, and Living Death. Living death played right into his plan, turning all his chumped/traded early dudes into a huge value board. Also, The Gitrog Monster is basically perfect. Large beater, but it's advantage comes at a price, and deathtouch doesn't help much with pushing dmg through. Love it. Love this deck. The fact that some of the grindy, advantage-based green cards I'm putting into my environment are showing their faces in decks aiming to take the long-game... just makes me a little bit happy inside.
Next up was my deck. Gotta say guys. I'm floored. The Temur Gifts Ungiven deck.... it works!! It fucking works. Went in thinking that I'd try to jam with RG and see how that deck looks, ended up in a completely different, but same space. I remember while I was drafting thinking "if I get Gifts, I think this is turning into a Gifts deck". And then I got Gifts. And Then I got Bring to Light. And then I got Devil's Play. And then I got Pyromancer's goggles. The deck came together. I couldn't believe it. I ended up with the jankiest, ass-backwards looking deck ever, and it works.
In my honest opinion, if anyone is looking to draft anything storm-like in their cube, this is how to do it. Zero (imo) pieces of this deck are overly niche, but it still has that awesome buildup feel of Storm. Also this is over several turns, and is much more easily slowed down/disrupted. Another plus, in my mind. All that aside, the game plan was simple (the game play was not): Stall through the early turns, with the goal of getting as far ahead on land advantage as possible. This is both through extra lands in hand to enable land drops every turn, and through ramping. Then with that advantage do a couple of different things: drop the Goggles and start clearing the opponents board with double or quadruple firebolts etc, and then aim a huge X-spell at the face, or go for the combo kill with Gifts ungiven. This can be a two card Gifts pile, I swear to god.
. Geistblast is insanewith Gifts Ungiven, and probably should be reevaluated by anyone who is writing it off. The Fork side is really, really good. If I didn't have the goggles in play, it still allowed me to finish the opponents off with a copied Play. My small selection of larger creatures helped me get just in range to get there, and Bring to Light served double duty as both tutor for one of these creatures, and as a second copy of Gifts. Also Goggles is amazing, for anyone writing that card off. Copied Firebolt is plenty good enough.
We had two RW Aggro-midrange decks at the table. Even though they were directly competing with each other (and sitting next to each other lol), the decks turned out fine. This might have just been a good pool for white, but still gives me pause into looking at my white section. Also that decks with white inthem more than double the number with blue, for instance. hmmmm. Here they are:
This was a funny little deck. This player is very new to drafting, and there are some abvious whiffs to what the rest of the deck wants to be doing (Archive, all sixes+), but the deck still ran beautifully.
This deck ran very, very well, and the drafter here has been playing the game for along time, so they know the ins and outs. Was interesting seeing the BW's in this deck, but he used them to good effect >1 times. This deck also had some sweet sweet synergies and plays. Firstly, Kiki-Angel combo, just sitting there. Don't know if he ever got to bust it out. Secondly, he had some great +1/+1 counter and flicker synergy. Counters on Berserker and Aspirant can help the High Sentinels without even needing to use their ability, and I saw him pull off a sweet play where he flickerwisp'd his own non-bloodthirsted Beserker, after having dealt damage that turn with the Crusader. So sweet.
The last deck was built (with help) by someone who'd never played mtg before. And the deck turned out to be a real beater! They caught on to the game incredibly quickly, and with a little guidance from the table had a great time (or so they say). He ended up first-picking Yasova Dragonclaw, asking the table what to do next, sticking to the advice to keep to Green and either blue or red, and ran with it. Took my advice to heart to focus on creatures that seem powerful (we had given him a training session prior), and ended up in a strong UG beatdown deck. The first of it's kind, I was super happy to see a UG tempo-type deck appear at my table, and more so this rookie just nailing it!
Look at that curve! Look at those beats! Look at the ~synergies~. Loved the token-makers with the powerful equipment and green pump. Whirler Rogue also enabled some mean unblockable attacks, and even fringe stuff like Titania + Nissa-awoken lands/Dread Statuary. So cool, and glad he was able to have such a nice deck for his inaugural experience with the game. Might tone it down next time with some duel decks or something, to get him more invested into the game outside of a whirwind draft session.
All in all a Grand-Slam draft for me and my group (and my cube!). Had a blast, and am seeing some really cool stuff pop up. With that in mind, I am now fully on board with working out a format where sweet interactions and stuff like this are free from any overbearing bombs. Will have to work that out over time, but some early targets:
pack rat
frost titan
primeval titan
martial coup
and maybe
dig through time
sorin, grim nemesis
And the list could obvs grow from there. I'm still of the mind that DtT is very powerful, but still only nets you two cards, and is horrendously non-bo with GY tech. But maybe I'm just wicked biased or something, time will tell.
Basics as Used:
: 18
: 9
: 9
: 16
: 20
The games ended up being a 3-way I was part of, with a 1-on-1 next to us... then a reverse of that, with me part of a 1-on-1 with one of the previous 1-on-1 people.... and then a five way multiplayer game. Wild ride of games, that's for sure. Got a lot of nice comments out of the blue about how nice and awesome my cube was, which was a tremendous feeling.
Also ended up having two decks with
in them, which felt like a personal victory of some sort. I mean, one of them was mine, because I usualy end up in some blue deck or another, but another blue deck, and it wasn't just a control deck?! Yay~Anyway, here's the decks we came up with and how they played out! Interestingly, there was a lot of overlap in deck themes, but everyone's deck turned out decent at worst! Nice
The usual format-stormer came out strong again yesterday, as is his modus operandi. This deck is one that I want to talk a little about. He drafted a truly mean GB grindfest deck, with some bombs in the form of GitGud toad, and Soul of Innistrad (who you all should consider, it's awesome), but flushed out the curve with value-generating green creatures backed up by grindy B engines. If there's any immediate signs of victory with the Temur Advantage investigation, it's his deck. It's not RG, but it was still a very control-oriented green deck with a large suit of card advantage options, combined with some powerful finishers. Love love love it! Also, this is the deck that won me over against Pack Rat. Card's busted.
 | | | | | |
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Now, as I'm discovering, it's hard to end up calling this sort of deck "control". It had a very big beatdown plan if needed, but I didn't generally see game work out that way. His main lines of play were to get out and stall/build advantage with his suite of 2-drops, and then generate insurmountable leads with things like Blood Artist, Soul of Innistrad, and Living Death. Living death played right into his plan, turning all his chumped/traded early dudes into a huge value board. Also, The Gitrog Monster is basically perfect. Large beater, but it's advantage comes at a price, and deathtouch doesn't help much with pushing dmg through. Love it. Love this deck. The fact that some of the grindy, advantage-based green cards I'm putting into my environment are showing their faces in decks aiming to take the long-game... just makes me a little bit happy inside.
Next up was my deck. Gotta say guys. I'm floored. The Temur Gifts Ungiven deck.... it works!! It fucking works. Went in thinking that I'd try to jam with RG and see how that deck looks, ended up in a completely different, but same space. I remember while I was drafting thinking "if I get Gifts, I think this is turning into a Gifts deck". And then I got Gifts. And Then I got Bring to Light. And then I got Devil's Play. And then I got Pyromancer's goggles. The deck came together. I couldn't believe it. I ended up with the jankiest, ass-backwards looking deck ever, and it works.
| | | | | |
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In my honest opinion, if anyone is looking to draft anything storm-like in their cube, this is how to do it. Zero (imo) pieces of this deck are overly niche, but it still has that awesome buildup feel of Storm. Also this is over several turns, and is much more easily slowed down/disrupted. Another plus, in my mind. All that aside, the game plan was simple (the game play was not): Stall through the early turns, with the goal of getting as far ahead on land advantage as possible. This is both through extra lands in hand to enable land drops every turn, and through ramping. Then with that advantage do a couple of different things: drop the Goggles and start clearing the opponents board with double or quadruple firebolts etc, and then aim a huge X-spell at the face, or go for the combo kill with Gifts ungiven. This can be a two card Gifts pile, I swear to god.
- Geistblast
- Devil's Play
. Geistblast is insanewith Gifts Ungiven, and probably should be reevaluated by anyone who is writing it off. The Fork side is really, really good. If I didn't have the goggles in play, it still allowed me to finish the opponents off with a copied Play. My small selection of larger creatures helped me get just in range to get there, and Bring to Light served double duty as both tutor for one of these creatures, and as a second copy of Gifts. Also Goggles is amazing, for anyone writing that card off. Copied Firebolt is plenty good enough.We had two RW Aggro-midrange decks at the table. Even though they were directly competing with each other (and sitting next to each other lol), the decks turned out fine. This might have just been a good pool for white, but still gives me pause into looking at my white section. Also that decks with white inthem more than double the number with blue, for instance. hmmmm. Here they are:
| | | |
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| |||
This was a funny little deck. This player is very new to drafting, and there are some abvious whiffs to what the rest of the deck wants to be doing (Archive, all sixes+), but the deck still ran beautifully.
| | | | |
| ||||
| ||||
This deck ran very, very well, and the drafter here has been playing the game for along time, so they know the ins and outs. Was interesting seeing the BW's in this deck, but he used them to good effect >1 times. This deck also had some sweet sweet synergies and plays. Firstly, Kiki-Angel combo, just sitting there. Don't know if he ever got to bust it out. Secondly, he had some great +1/+1 counter and flicker synergy. Counters on Berserker and Aspirant can help the High Sentinels without even needing to use their ability, and I saw him pull off a sweet play where he flickerwisp'd his own non-bloodthirsted Beserker, after having dealt damage that turn with the Crusader. So sweet.
The last deck was built (with help) by someone who'd never played mtg before. And the deck turned out to be a real beater! They caught on to the game incredibly quickly, and with a little guidance from the table had a great time (or so they say
). He ended up first-picking Yasova Dragonclaw, asking the table what to do next, sticking to the advice to keep to Green and either blue or red, and ran with it. Took my advice to heart to focus on creatures that seem powerful (we had given him a training session prior), and ended up in a strong UG beatdown deck. The first of it's kind, I was super happy to see a UG tempo-type deck appear at my table, and more so this rookie just nailing it! | | | | | |
| |||||
| |||||
Look at that curve! Look at those beats! Look at the ~synergies~. Loved the token-makers with the powerful equipment and green pump. Whirler Rogue also enabled some mean unblockable attacks, and even fringe stuff like Titania + Nissa-awoken lands/Dread Statuary. So cool, and glad he was able to have such a nice deck for his inaugural experience with the game. Might tone it down next time with some duel decks or something, to get him more invested into the game outside of a whirwind draft session.
All in all a Grand-Slam draft for me and my group (and my cube!). Had a blast, and am seeing some really cool stuff pop up. With that in mind, I am now fully on board with working out a format where sweet interactions and stuff like this are free from any overbearing bombs. Will have to work that out over time, but some early targets:
pack rat
frost titan
primeval titan
martial coup
and maybe
dig through time
sorin, grim nemesis
And the list could obvs grow from there. I'm still of the mind that DtT is very powerful, but still only nets you two cards, and is horrendously non-bo with GY tech. But maybe I'm just wicked biased or something, time will tell.
Basics as Used:
: 18: 9: 9: 16: 20Round two of what has turned into a sort of renaissance for my cube is the absolute pile of drafting that's happened in the past two weeks or so. Super shoutouts to everyone who put time and effort in to bash away at my format. Got drafts in from
Genericco
Alfonzo Bonzo
Suicufnoc
Ward - not sure who this is
Aoret
ColonelSanders
Kirblinx
Mc Usher
Gozmit97
Grillo_Parlante
oylm - my top drafter
and myself
A thousand "thank you"s to all of you for churning out 44 drafts. That's a super duper number, as far as I'm concerned. So much to go through, think about, ponder over. I haven't even scratched the surface, tbh, but I'm excited to have it all there when I do get the time! Thank you again.
Even though I haven't gotten anywhere near what I can out of my stack of decks, I have run into some awesome stuff that gave me a smile or two. First up has to be this coincidental (?) back-to-back-to-back draft triplet I got that made me feel very happy with the direction my UR section is going:
Not one, not two, but three UR decks, and they all take a refreshing and unique approach on the pair too. I'll definitely be looking into these decks further and trying to look at what is working well. From top to bottom, they ended up with:
. I know it might seem weird to want to see control decks in all colors (blue included), but it really seems to be a spicier way to have things be. Being able to pull a fast one or a slow one in a lot of unique colors and scenarios is a format fantasy, and it seems to be on the horizon . Anyway, check out this sweet deck from the good Colonel, with a lot of grindy removal into bomby bombs. Very flavorful to Orzhov, as far as I'm concerned, and a strong looking deck to boot!
This next deck is a stunner. I love love love Bant to death, and seeing what sort of things come together to make such a squeaky-clean looking one is very educational and feels sweet. Bonus feel-good on seeing come in as a solid role-player in form and function as a control color, it's not just being used for finisher beatsticks, it's there for early dig, recursion, card advantage. So awesome.
Grillo and Alfonzo helped me look into the light on this one. The realization that a strong support package for grindiness in Green could open up a whole class of long-game decks in basically all of the colors helped me see whether or not the package was even working. So far I'm still of the mind that it's a home run success. Further format-wide polishing and improvements can help the theory come into it's own and be successful, but on the surface the system is working. I could die from happiness.
There are so many more decks to go through, I swear I'm not overlooking a single one of them, this is just my random little highlights for now. So cool! Augh. Also an interesting stat that came up with this round of testing:
Seems like at least with these 44 decks, red is the solid best color to go, with black backing it up. This is an immensely valuable datapoint, and warrants further looking into why this might be. On a surface level, there were a good number of straight-up Rakdos Aggro decks. Maybe I've given them a hair too many toys to fiddle with?
Lastly, a cute little color section upgrade I'm working on involves the 4cmc and up for the Green section. Right now 4 switches I'm making to try and pivot the top end to a new angle:
->
The eidolon is just sideboarded a lot, cold hard facts. I expect to see Harmonize pop up in >1 slower deck, and have them be satisfied with it.
->
Vorapede is public enemy number one when it comes to ramp. The earlier you get it out, the earlier you beat in the faces. Genesis is fine to ramp out, but plays a lot better the longer you can recur value.
->
A sad day in GB land. But I feel like Genesis fills this role, there isn't a lot of nostalgia/preconcieved notions in my group around SS, and Primal command is helping out with another switch I'm making. Also tutoring for stuff is awesome. Anyway, that thing:
->
I've been getting complaints since the beginning about Artifacts and Enchantments being a little too pesky. Well, here we go. Also Gnaw to the Bone can be overbearing, and my previous switch for Primal Command helps out with the incidental-life-gain slots for G control decks.
Genericco
Alfonzo Bonzo
Suicufnoc
Ward - not sure who this is
Aoret
ColonelSanders
Kirblinx
Mc Usher
Gozmit97
Grillo_Parlante
oylm - my top drafter
and myself
A thousand "thank you"s to all of you for churning out 44 drafts. That's a super duper number, as far as I'm concerned. So much to go through, think about, ponder over. I haven't even scratched the surface, tbh, but I'm excited to have it all there when I do get the time! Thank you again.
Even though I haven't gotten anywhere near what I can out of my stack of decks, I have run into some awesome stuff that gave me a smile or two. First up has to be this coincidental (?) back-to-back-to-back draft triplet I got that made me feel very happy with the direction my UR section is going:
- More "classic" UR spells-matter, a little on the controlling side of spell velocity.
- A Daretti deck. Seeing one of these made me a very, very happy sigh. Not only can my UR support the spells, the artifact deck can come together too!
- A mean looking spells/aggro combo! I'm pretty sure these three didn't intend to make me feel satisfied to the max about my UR decks, but it worked.
. I know it might seem weird to want to see control decks in all colors (blue included), but it really seems to be a spicier way to have things be. Being able to pull a fast one or a slow one in a lot of unique colors and scenarios is a format fantasy, and it seems to be on the horizon . Anyway, check out this sweet deck from the good Colonel, with a lot of grindy removal into bomby bombs. Very flavorful to Orzhov, as far as I'm concerned, and a strong looking deck to boot!This next deck is a stunner. I love love love Bant to death, and seeing what sort of things come together to make such a squeaky-clean looking one is very educational and feels sweet. Bonus feel-good on seeing come in as a solid role-player in form and function as a control color, it's not just being used for finisher beatsticks, it's there for early dig, recursion, card advantage. So awesome.
Grillo and Alfonzo helped me look into the light on this one. The realization that a strong support package for grindiness in Green could open up a whole class of long-game decks in basically all of the colors helped me see whether or not the package was even working. So far I'm still of the mind that it's a home run success. Further format-wide polishing and improvements can help the theory come into it's own and be successful, but on the surface the system is working. I could die from happiness.
There are so many more decks to go through, I swear I'm not overlooking a single one of them, this is just my random little highlights for now. So cool! Augh. Also an interesting stat that came up with this round of testing:
Seems like at least with these 44 decks, red is the solid best color to go, with black backing it up. This is an immensely valuable datapoint, and warrants further looking into why this might be. On a surface level, there were a good number of straight-up Rakdos Aggro decks. Maybe I've given them a hair too many toys to fiddle with?
Lastly, a cute little color section upgrade I'm working on involves the 4cmc and up for the Green section. Right now 4 switches I'm making to try and pivot the top end to a new angle:
-> The eidolon is just sideboarded a lot, cold hard facts. I expect to see Harmonize pop up in >1 slower deck, and have them be satisfied with it.
-> Vorapede is public enemy number one when it comes to ramp. The earlier you get it out, the earlier you beat in the faces. Genesis is fine to ramp out, but plays a lot better the longer you can recur value.
-> A sad day in GB land
. But I feel like Genesis fills this role, there isn't a lot of nostalgia/preconcieved notions in my group around SS, and Primal command is helping out with another switch I'm making. Also tutoring for stuff is awesome. Anyway, that thing: -> I've been getting complaints since the beginning about Artifacts and Enchantments being a little too pesky. Well, here we go. Also Gnaw to the Bone can be overbearing, and my previous switch for Primal Command helps out with the incidental-life-gain slots for G control decks.
It is always nice when someone comments about the drafts you have done on cubetutor. Makes it feel all that more worthwhile. I did notice after I did my UR draft that it had been drafted twice before, but I went in blind and wasn't aware of this fact until after. Also seems weird that red is the most drafted colour. Might just be luck, might be because when people want to go aggro it is the only obvious option? I don't really know. My major question though is this quote:
I don't know if this is possible. Lets take a look at the definition of 'sigh' shall we:
I don't know if this is possible. Lets take a look at the definition of 'sigh' shall we:
I guess a 'sigh of relief' can be considered positive, but it still have negative connotations (you only just got out of a dire situation). A sigh IMO can only be negative, you can't have a sigh of happiness. I would like to be thoroughly enlightened to the other way of thinking though if someone believes it to be true.
I think a sigh is more of a reflexive body action than a specific emotion, like yawning. I think it fits perfectly to think of sighs in a happy context, ie. Contentment, relaxation, satisfaction, plain ol' happiness.
Re: red draft number, I think it's either luck like you said, or its a pretty diverse color in my format. It fits well in UR spells, RB aggro, RW aggro, GR control, jund, etc. My last five man had three decks with red in them. What that means? Not sure yet.
Edit: and don't let my picture fool you about my happiness. Finding a happy Charlie brown is hard enough. His sighs are definitely on the negative side....
Cube Online/Offline Sync 061916: CT LINK
Since I keep a separate excel file for keeping track of my cube contents, my CubeTutor lags behind by a little bit. Nothing better than a lazy weekend for syncing up and talking about it a little bit! Two major goals of what I've been working on is to
archetype and theme is well and good, but getting it to work, be deep, be drafted, and have it fit within the context of what the other colors and pairs are doing? That's the hard part o_O. But as they say, Life is a journey, and I've certainly strapped myself into this particular side quest.
Temples
->
So far I've replaced the enemy colored half of the cycle. I've gotta convince myself to take something else out to get that full cycle, if it happens... (I'm very stubborn on this sort of thing). I fully believe, and have been convinced as such, that the temples are very healthy and good lands for a cube environment. What it comes down to for me is that they are card quality for everyone, built into lands. One of the things I constantly have in the back of my mind is ways to improve card quality throughout the environment, leading to fewer nongames, less variance and "losing to my own deck", and all around feel goods. I think temples are an important part of that philosophy. The major candidate for the allied cycle are the mirage fetches, I think...
RG Stuff
->
Mostly polishing up what my physical cube has known for a while now. Not 100% sold on the switches the way they are, or that all the cards taken out deserve to be out, but this is how it is for now. Arbor elf was brought in because I didn't have a hierarch, and I got an altered AE, to be perfectly honest. What can I say, I have a thing for aesthetics? See also here the inclusion of the Refres-I mean Reinforcements to give non W control a decent way to gain some life and block some stuff. This plays well into two plans that the deck is aiming for: small value creatures that buy time, and interaction with the GY involving recursion and recently Delirium. This is still an acute interest of mine, and I hope to further deepen and improve this archetype and game space.
U Stuff and changes in the air?
->
Blue has long been the forgotten child of my cube. I kinda just threw together what looked about right and have basically run with it since. Not sure if that's explicitly why Blue is perennially under-drafted on cube nights, but it probably doesn't help, amirite? To that end, I think U is my next major target for Deep Analysis. Much like Dom, I still need to figure out exactly what job Blue is looking to apply for, but I have some starts of ideas, and existing concepts to be built on to. The switches above are largely towards the basic underlying premise of what I want to be trying: give it's spells back. To that end, I've two new finisher pieces in startled awake and crush of tentacles. Startled Awake in particular is an experiment in bolstering an archetype that I think is a good for for , in particular. More on my concept below. Body double is taking the place of sphinx, moving the slot from GY enabler to GY payoff. Trade Routes was an exercise in almost-there. Turns out that Perilous Research also interacts with lands, in a much cleaner and more incidental way...
Misc Stuffs
->
-Olivia: A cool new toy for RB to tinker with, also just a 3/3 flier for 3, giving my RB aggressive decks some useful evasive reach.
-Agent: Finally got my hands on one, excited to try out some cool cascade decks.
-Inspector: Soldier is about as boring as boring can be, and has two random up-yours abilities. Inspector is a bomb in limited and standard, and furthers my background goal of card quality and fewer non-games for everyone.
-Return: Also finally picked up one of these. Victimize is cool, but not the spell reanimator and value decks deserve. Dread Return, on the other hand, does all sorts of cool stuff.
BLUE / RED: 'Solving' for Combo Part II
So I've been doing some more mental tinkering. There's still a lot to go, but I think I'm onto something. I think I've found a second leg for the OG RUG concept I had in the engine thread. And while I was at it, I think I've "solved for storm" for my environment, much like in Safra's Visionary work for her own environment (just not overly visionary on my part). The crux of the investigation came after my last cube night, where I put together a wicked RUG combo deck. UR was definitely the core of the deck, and it ends up being:
Geist-Goggles combo
This deck is a control deck at heart, with an alterante win condition in the form of Burn Combo. The decks main goal is to last long enough to both find the combo pieces and have enough mana and time to use those. It makes the deck tricky but rewarding to play, imo. The Key pieces for the deck ended up being:
All glued together with everyone's favorite hardest-card-ever to use for both sides of the table, and it's many-color sidekick:
Some of the Beautiful Things about how the combo worked was
Others pieces that would be good/are being tested:
These are basically shoring up the options available. Startled Awake is a cool Alternate Wincon, offers burn on a separate axis from, and only needs two total uses to be lethal (one copy also works). Mizzix's Mastery wouldn't work with the X spells (great with Fiery Confluence tho), but can still be the "second turn" of the combo, using the accumulated and just-cast spells to "get there". Bonus points for copying it with Pyromancer's Goggles??
Time Warp is the card that could link this with a "Taking Turns" sort of mini-theme, where you gain massive extra extra advantage through the use of spell-copying, recursion, and the like. This is turn gives us a potential future look into, thereby completing the third leg of the RUG concept originally thought up. Anyway, that investigation is for the future.....
While this is not nearly as far thought out as the RG archetype, I think it has some space, and can be backed up with some other stuff:
I think it might be important to work more spells of other kinds into my U section, and possibly elsewhere, so that the pieces can have interaction and uses throughout more of the game. Particularly, more "board wipes" in blue might be prudent. The deck really thrives on taking it's damn time, and those would be important parts of that. Putting recursion right into blue might also be an important piece of the puzzle.
Anyway, that's where I'm at right now, hoping to flush it out and test it more over the next... however long. Thanks for reading all this way, you guys are all the best!
Since I keep a separate excel file for keeping track of my cube contents, my CubeTutor lags behind by a little bit. Nothing better than a lazy weekend for syncing up and talking about it a little bit! Two major goals of what I've been working on is to
- Continue polishing the Control-Engine archetype
- Polish up around the cube, largely in preparation for my next target color and it's pairs:
archetype and theme is well and good, but getting it to work, be deep, be drafted, and have it fit within the context of what the other colors and pairs are doing? That's the hard part o_O. But as they say, Life is a journey, and I've certainly strapped myself into this particular side quest.Temples
-> So far I've replaced the enemy colored half of the cycle. I've gotta convince myself to take something else out to get that full cycle, if it happens... (I'm very stubborn on this sort of thing). I fully believe, and have been convinced as such, that the temples are very healthy and good lands for a cube environment. What it comes down to for me is that they are card quality for everyone, built into lands. One of the things I constantly have in the back of my mind is ways to improve card quality throughout the environment, leading to fewer nongames, less variance and "losing to my own deck", and all around feel goods. I think temples are an important part of that philosophy. The major candidate for the allied cycle are the mirage fetches, I think...
RG Stuff
->Mostly polishing up what my physical cube has known for a while now. Not 100% sold on the switches the way they are, or that all the cards taken out deserve to be out, but this is how it is for now. Arbor elf was brought in because I didn't have a hierarch, and I got an altered AE, to be perfectly honest. What can I say, I have a thing for aesthetics? See also here the inclusion of the Refres-I mean Reinforcements to give non W control a decent way to gain some life and block some stuff. This plays well into two plans that the deck is aiming for: small value creatures that buy time, and interaction with the GY involving recursion and recently Delirium. This is still an acute interest of mine, and I hope to further deepen and improve this archetype and game space.
U Stuff and changes in the air?
->Blue has long been the forgotten child of my cube. I kinda just threw together what looked about right and have basically run with it since. Not sure if that's explicitly why Blue is perennially under-drafted on cube nights, but it probably doesn't help, amirite? To that end, I think U is my next major target for Deep Analysis. Much like Dom, I still need to figure out exactly what job Blue is looking to apply for, but I have some starts of ideas, and existing concepts to be built on to. The switches above are largely towards the basic underlying premise of what I want to be trying: give
it's spells back. To that end, I've two new finisher pieces in startled awake and crush of tentacles. Startled Awake in particular is an experiment in bolstering an archetype that I think is a good for for , in particular. More on my concept below. Body double is taking the place of sphinx, moving the slot from GY enabler to GY payoff. Trade Routes was an exercise in almost-there. Turns out that Perilous Research also interacts with lands, in a much cleaner and more incidental way...Misc Stuffs
->-Olivia: A cool new toy for RB to tinker with, also just a 3/3 flier for 3, giving my RB aggressive decks some useful evasive reach.
-Agent: Finally got my hands on one, excited to try out some cool cascade decks.
-Inspector: Soldier is about as boring as boring can be, and has two random up-yours abilities. Inspector is a bomb in limited and standard, and furthers my background goal of card quality and fewer non-games for everyone.
-Return: Also finally picked up one of these. Victimize is cool, but not the spell reanimator and value decks deserve. Dread Return, on the other hand, does all sorts of cool stuff.
BLUE / RED: 'Solving' for Combo Part II
So I've been doing some more mental tinkering. There's still a lot to go, but I think I'm onto something. I think I've found a second leg for the OG RUG concept I had in the engine thread. And while I was at it, I think I've "solved for storm" for my environment, much like in Safra's Visionary work for her own environment (just not overly visionary on my part). The crux of the investigation came after my last cube night, where I put together a wicked RUG combo deck. UR was definitely the core of the deck, and it ends up being:
Geist-Goggles combo
This deck is a control deck at heart, with an alterante win condition in the form of Burn Combo. The decks main goal is to last long enough to both find the combo pieces and have enough mana and time to use those. It makes the deck tricky but rewarding to play, imo. The Key pieces for the deck ended up being:
All glued together with everyone's favorite hardest-card-ever to use for both sides of the table, and it's many-color sidekick:
Some of the Beautiful Things about how the combo worked was
- it worked from the graveyard
- most of the pieces could first be used in a control context
- it could be done over more than one turn
Others pieces that would be good/are being tested:
These are basically shoring up the options available. Startled Awake is a cool Alternate Wincon, offers burn on a separate axis from
, and only needs two total uses to be lethal (one copy also works). Mizzix's Mastery wouldn't work with the X spells (great with Fiery Confluence tho), but can still be the "second turn" of the combo, using the accumulated and just-cast spells to "get there". Bonus points for copying it with Pyromancer's Goggles?? Time Warp is the card that could link this with a "Taking Turns" sort of mini-theme, where you gain massive extra extra advantage through the use of spell-copying, recursion, and the like. This is turn gives us a potential future look into
, thereby completing the third leg of the RUG concept originally thought up. Anyway, that investigation is for the future.....While this is not nearly as far thought out as the RG archetype, I think it has some space, and can be backed up with some other stuff:
I think it might be important to work more spells of other kinds into my U section, and possibly elsewhere, so that the pieces can have interaction and uses throughout more of the game. Particularly, more "board wipes" in blue might be prudent. The deck really thrives on taking it's damn time, and those would be important parts of that. Putting recursion right into blue might also be an important piece of the puzzle.
Anyway, that's where I'm at right now, hoping to flush it out and test it more over the next... however long. Thanks for reading all this way, you guys are all the best!
Eldritch Moon + Housekeeping
So we are only 40-odd cards into EMN, and my designer brain is already just a'churning away. So many cool cards, and so many avenues for improving my cube! There's a great thing about giving yourself a little time to ponder over stuff and realize where one might have gone too deep, not deep enough, etc. EMN, I think is going to offer a great opportunity for a little spring (summer) cleaning, and further improve my grasp on where I want to go with my environment. One of the best things about the pull of time is that you can get over cards that seemed really awesome, but are probably not what the environment is looking for at the moment. First major example of that is:
This card flies in the face of a lot of what I'm trying to achieve in my current cube goals. Critically, this card is just not friendly to read. It's pacifism, but worded like a million times worse than pacifism. Another card standing out for me opened up a nice path:
-> ->
Realizing (cemented by the confirmation from Onder) that I could reach into another color and tweak things based on what was happening there was thoroughly illuminating. I'm strongly of the mind that hybrid cards are not multicolor unless they are heavily hybrid, so using them to sort of conjoin slots, as it were, really helped open up design space. Removal is now open to being more gradated between and , which opened up avenues for taking strongly purposed spells and adding a more modular, multipurpose spell. In concert with this concept, I plan on doing an audit, if you will, of the state of my removal. It's something I've never really done and as such, I have no definitive idea what my removal looks like . I feel like I could extend this concept somewhat further to my advantage... some immediate examples that come to mind:
Example conjoining: Remove something like Night's Whisper for scarscale ritual, which also takes a similar role as Perilous Research. This opens up that slot for something exciting, say, Aether Spellbomb or selkie hedge-mage (which opens up a whole 'nother possible line).
So needless to say, I'm fairly excited about rooting around for this sort of design-space-condensing that might be possible.
And while all that's been happening, I've been noticing some problem children that might have found new life in better things. I'm far from done sorting this out, but as of yet my section is in slight disarray, with close on it's heels. I'm thinking that my other colors may soon follow.
In blue, we are seeing a great boon in payoff spells for spells matter in blue. That's the real sticker with spells matter, imo, and may be why my drafters don't go all in that often: the deck is almost by demand a 2+ color deck. Nothing wrong with that, but the structure isn't obvious! The spells are in blue, and the payoff is in R/W! That, imo, immediately makes it harder to grok because the blue signs for the deck aren't there, it's all lines (thank RBM for that terminology). The two biggest slam dunks prowess payoff have gotten are:
These gems bring a cube-building tear to my eye they are so awesome! One is a powerful finisher that interacts favorable with non-creature spells and helps your ground force get through, and the other explicitly states that it works with instants and sorceries and flips into a great beater. So sweet. I think the victims for these swaps are fairly straightforward for me:
Tarrant is... pretty wimpy at the outset. A 2/2 for 4 ain't the greatest. Grand Architect is more narrow than I'd like after some further plays, and I have ample artifact support in R. This also helps focus the color a little. Really excited to see if I can further improve my spells archetypes, and EMN has given another great tool for that:
This is a brilliantly designed spell, and so simple too! Just take Venser and pull him away, leaving the spell (that makes him a bear, btw). Very much enjoying that it can open an entire slot up on its own, which will likely push out the tad-too-fast vapor snag.
I'm hoping that this will be the start of something nice for my U section, something to open it up to more of my drafters. We'll see.
Another angle I've just recently been looking at is my green spells. The recent spoiling of
This spell is super good, exactly what we wanted out of grisly salvage, and has made me realize that I may be shortchanging myself a little on 'draw' spells. The two primary suspects are
Dreams is an awesome card, and not underpowered, imo. But, it is Lenticular in that my drafters don't value it because they don't know what to do with it. Now, theres a lot to be said about using things as Gifts Ungiven pieces. For that reason Pulse is also in the spotlight. 3 mana may be just sliiiiiightly too much for what it offers. I'm really not sure yet, tbh.
As EMN continues to be spoiled, I'm sure I'll have more to think about. I have more to think about right now! For another time and post, though... thanks for reading, as always!
So we are only 40-odd cards into EMN, and my designer brain is already just a'churning away. So many cool cards, and so many avenues for improving my cube! There's a great thing about giving yourself a little time to ponder over stuff and realize where one might have gone too deep, not deep enough, etc. EMN, I think is going to offer a great opportunity for a little spring (summer) cleaning, and further improve my grasp on where I want to go with my environment. One of the best things about the pull of time is that you can get over cards that seemed really awesome, but are probably not what the environment is looking for at the moment. First major example of that is:
This card flies in the face of a lot of what I'm trying to achieve in my current cube goals. Critically, this card is just not friendly to read. It's pacifism, but worded like a million times worse than pacifism. Another card standing out for me opened up a nice path:
-> ->
Realizing (cemented by the confirmation from Onder) that I could reach into another color and tweak things based on what was happening there was thoroughly illuminating. I'm strongly of the mind that hybrid cards are not multicolor unless they are heavily hybrid, so using them to sort of conjoin slots, as it were, really helped open up design space. Removal is now open to being more gradated between
and , which opened up avenues for taking strongly purposed spells and adding a more modular, multipurpose spell. In concert with this concept, I plan on doing an audit, if you will, of the state of my removal. It's something I've never really done and as such, I have no definitive idea what my removal looks like . I feel like I could extend this concept somewhat further to my advantage... some immediate examples that come to mind:Example conjoining: Remove something like Night's Whisper for scarscale ritual, which also takes a similar role as Perilous Research. This opens up that slot for something exciting, say, Aether Spellbomb or selkie hedge-mage (which opens up a whole 'nother possible line).
So needless to say, I'm fairly excited about rooting around for this sort of design-space-condensing that might be possible.
And while all that's been happening, I've been noticing some problem children that might have found new life in better things. I'm far from done sorting this out, but as of yet my
section is in slight disarray, with close on it's heels. I'm thinking that my other colors may soon follow.In blue, we are seeing a great boon in payoff spells for spells matter in blue. That's the real sticker with spells matter, imo, and may be why my drafters don't go all in that often: the deck is almost by demand a 2+ color deck. Nothing wrong with that, but the structure isn't obvious! The spells are in blue, and the payoff is in R/W! That, imo, immediately makes it harder to grok because the blue signs for the deck aren't there, it's all lines (thank RBM for that terminology). The two biggest slam dunks
prowess payoff have gotten are:
These gems bring a cube-building tear to my eye they are so awesome! One is a powerful finisher that interacts favorable with non-creature spells and helps your ground force get through, and the other explicitly states that it works with instants and sorceries and flips into a great beater. So sweet. I think the victims for these swaps are fairly straightforward for me:
Tarrant is... pretty wimpy at the outset. A 2/2 for 4 ain't the greatest. Grand Architect is more narrow than I'd like after some further plays, and I have ample artifact support in R. This also helps focus the color a little. Really excited to see if I can further improve my spells archetypes, and EMN has given another great tool for that:
This is a brilliantly designed spell, and so simple too! Just take Venser and pull him away, leaving the spell (that makes him a
bear, btw). Very much enjoying that it can open an entire slot up on its own, which will likely push out the tad-too-fast vapor snag.I'm hoping that this will be the start of something nice for my U section, something to open it up to more of my drafters. We'll see.
Another angle I've just recently been looking at is my green spells. The recent spoiling of
This spell is super good, exactly what we wanted out of grisly salvage, and has made me realize that I may be shortchanging myself a little on
'draw' spells. The two primary suspects areDreams is an awesome card, and not underpowered, imo. But, it is Lenticular in that my drafters don't value it because they don't know what to do with it. Now, theres a lot to be said about using things as Gifts Ungiven pieces. For that reason Pulse is also in the spotlight. 3 mana may be just sliiiiiightly too much for what it offers. I'm really not sure yet, tbh.
As EMN continues to be spoiled, I'm sure I'll have more to think about. I have more to think about right now! For another time and post, though... thanks for reading, as always!
I had Pit Fight in my cube for a really long time, and I think I saw it cast a grand total of once. The problem with fight cards (and this is why we generally don't run Prey Upon) is that in order to be really good they have to buff the creature's power and toughness. Otherwise you're way to susceptible to being blown out.
Scarscale Ritual looks cool, though. I've never seen that card before. I might try it out myself.
Scarscale Ritual looks cool, though. I've never seen that card before. I might try it out myself.
yeah, I'm totally on the same page with Pit Fight. It was just a card that popped into my head. Given slightly more time, I'm currently thinking about making a gruul switch to get some more removal options:
-> I'm not exactly sure what, if any, red removal can be opened up with this switch, but it adds a neat option to RG control, which I'm pushing.
Alternatively, it could be
I'm still working out how many of what I truly need. Something I've long needed to do.
I like Firespout. I had it in for a while, but I actually cut it a while back because I felt like I had too many sweepers and aggro was suffering as a result. Don't have much experience with Branching Bolt, but I don't see why it couldn't work in the right environment.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
It would take a lot of work for firespout to not just be a red spell with the wrong card frame.
Eldritch Moon + Housekeeping ~ Part II
Now that EMN has been fully spoiled and I've had more time to ponder stuff, ask probing questions, what have you, I think I've gotten more of my update ready to go! Focusing now on some cool fringe stuff that just has me giddy, and on the other colors that I didn't really get into thinking about earlier on. Really focusing on pushing some of the themes that WotC is also trying to push, and continually working on making my GY-centric more holistic and naturally-at-ease with using that resource (while also making my drafters want to go into that space naturally).
The first thing I got I'm not even sure will work out, but damn if I didn't sit on my couch for like two days straight thinking about it:
Like haha wow, I went deep when these twins were spoiled. I think the moment of epiphany was when I saw someone somewhere mention that it's a super duper combo with fleshbag marauder, which it is. My main hope is that G&G do one of two main things: Signal to someone in a first pack that a Zombie theme exists, and go for it, or pick it up later on in their Sidisi deck or what have you when they realize they have 4 zombies already, and that the incidental mill really helps the deck anyway. In order to build upon the theme in an attempt to not blatantly trap people, I decided to make some switcheroos in the zombie dept.
->
->
->
The demon was just a little too-good-stuff for my taste, and the really interesting things that can happen with Sidisi 2.0 make this an OK switch for me. I have to watch that I haven't made Black too consistent with both her and Dark Petition, but I'm willing to try it as a kind of angle on "black draw". Cloudskate is leaving as a victim of being one-too-many bounce effects on a stick, to make way for a really neato zombie that synergizes well with doing stuff in the GY. Vamp was just waiting for her time to bow out, and this is it. Husk is a zombie! Cool.
In black, the majority of what I ended up looking at was just cards that probably deserved to go, but I hadn't gotten through my lines of stubbornness yet. Bloodthrone Vampire is a good example of this.
This version of Liliana is awesome for what my cube is wanting to do. Synergizes with GY, can take a controlling or aggressive stance, isn't overbearing. Nice. Probably taking out my poor
Card just isn't that great, at least not with the sort of environment I have. Maybe with singleton breaking on the Sac deck he'd be fine, but for now... nah.
->
->
Transgress just doesn't cut it, imo, and blackmail seems like a fun game. Scarscale ritual is coming in as part of my (maybe bad) plan to introduce a couple more hybrid cards to expand on design space. We'll see.
In red, I hope to continue pushing the dichotomy that both aggro and control are perfectly fine paths to take. Saw a couple of awesome pieces from the later half of spoilers that helped me along with developing the red section I want:
Chaos reveler is just so cool and plays well in both the long game style of deck as a hand-refiller, and in a spellslinging deck that's churning out multiple plays a turn. Awesome! Shreds of sanity is super nice card recursion for red, which normally doesn't get much, and helps with deck in UR and GR justify using a lot of spells. Looking like the victims are:
Fall just doesn't read that nicely, and can be slightly tricky to use the way you want to at the time you want to do it. I'll let Sudden Demise shine in this spotlight. I've been looking for a replacement for the Dragon, and I got one! Like the parallels with CA on both. One further switch being made:
->
Dragon is just not that exciting, and the artifact typing isn't coming up enough. The fact that Soul plays well in mana superiority decks (read: control), and has synergy with the grave? Nice.
My green section is basically on the same path, but I've found a couple more cool additions from the likes of
Basically strict upgrade to Wild Mongrel is sweet, and Gnarlwood Dryad plays into both my Delirium subtheme and the more controlling stance my Green can take. Taking out:
WM = duh. E1 never really happened in my environment. Especially now that the color is at odds with such an aggressive 1 drop, it was time to make the switch.
I also found a sweet spell in the likes of
It's probably one of the best green removal spells they've printed yet, and I'm excited to try it out. Taking the place of the mentioned-in-my-last-post nostalgic dreams.
The last card I'll talk about is
I still think that there are lots of people out there underrating this fellow by quite a bit. He has the potential to take away the game basically on the back of his own abilities. And I'm not so convinced that black is poorly suited to helping him:
Cards that help with protecting him, getting him to connect, and even buffing him
Thoughtsieze
Duress
Doom blade
Hero's downfall
Herald of Torment
Blood-chin rager
And green is more than welcome to help along with stuff like
moldervine cloak
become immense
vines of vastwood
briarhorn
All in all, really cool card that I think deserves a chance to shine. I'll finally be taking out
which is fine, but I've almost assuredly overvalued, and really isn't needed with Spider Spawning as a thing.
anyways, I think that's about as far as I've gotten on my most recent tuning spree. Some time along I think I'll have to go into depth about what I've really trying to work towards, archetype wise, methodology-wise, etc. One day. Thanks for reading, as always!
Now that EMN has been fully spoiled and I've had more time to ponder stuff, ask probing questions, what have you, I think I've gotten more of my update ready to go! Focusing now on some cool fringe stuff that just has me giddy, and on the other colors that I didn't really get into thinking about earlier on. Really focusing on pushing some of the themes that WotC is also trying to push, and continually working on making my GY-centric more holistic and naturally-at-ease with using that resource (while also making my drafters want to go into that space naturally).
The first thing I got I'm not even sure will work out, but damn if I didn't sit on my couch for like two days straight thinking about it:
Like haha wow, I went deep when these twins were spoiled. I think the moment of epiphany was when I saw someone somewhere mention that it's a super duper combo with fleshbag marauder, which it is. My main hope is that G&G do one of two main things: Signal to someone in a first pack that a Zombie theme exists, and go for it, or pick it up later on in their Sidisi deck or what have you when they realize they have 4 zombies already, and that the incidental mill really helps the deck anyway. In order to build upon the theme in an attempt to not blatantly trap people, I decided to make some switcheroos in the zombie dept.
-> -> -> The demon was just a little too-good-stuff for my taste, and the really interesting things that can happen with Sidisi 2.0 make this an OK switch for me. I have to watch that I haven't made Black too consistent with both her and Dark Petition, but I'm willing to try it as a kind of angle on "black draw". Cloudskate is leaving as a victim of being one-too-many bounce effects on a stick, to make way for a really neato zombie that synergizes well with doing stuff in the GY. Vamp was just waiting for her time to bow out, and this is it. Husk is a zombie! Cool.
In black, the majority of what I ended up looking at was just cards that probably deserved to go, but I hadn't gotten through my lines of stubbornness yet. Bloodthrone Vampire is a good example of this.
This version of Liliana is awesome for what my cube is wanting to do
. Synergizes with GY, can take a controlling or aggressive stance, isn't overbearing. Nice. Probably taking out my poorCard just isn't that great, at least not with the sort of environment I have. Maybe with singleton breaking on the Sac deck he'd be fine, but for now... nah.
-> -> Transgress just doesn't cut it, imo, and blackmail seems like a fun game. Scarscale ritual is coming in as part of my (maybe bad) plan to introduce a couple more hybrid cards to expand on design space. We'll see.
In red, I hope to continue pushing the dichotomy that both aggro and control are perfectly fine paths to take. Saw a couple of awesome pieces from the later half of spoilers that helped me along with developing the red section I want:
Chaos reveler is just so cool and plays well in both the long game style of deck as a hand-refiller, and in a spellslinging deck that's churning out multiple plays a turn. Awesome! Shreds of sanity is super nice card recursion for red, which normally doesn't get much, and helps with deck in UR and GR justify using a lot of spells. Looking like the victims are:
Fall just doesn't read that nicely, and can be slightly tricky to use the way you want to at the time you want to do it. I'll let Sudden Demise shine in this spotlight. I've been looking for a replacement for the Dragon, and I got one! Like the parallels with CA on both. One further switch being made:
-> Dragon is just not that exciting, and the artifact typing isn't coming up enough. The fact that Soul plays well in mana superiority decks (read: control), and has synergy with the grave? Nice.
My green section is basically on the same path, but I've found a couple more cool additions from the likes of
Basically strict upgrade to Wild Mongrel is sweet, and Gnarlwood Dryad plays into both my Delirium subtheme and the more controlling stance my Green can take. Taking out:
WM = duh. E1 never really happened in my environment. Especially now that the color is at odds with such an aggressive 1 drop, it was time to make the switch.
I also found a sweet spell in the likes of
It's probably one of the best green removal spells they've printed yet, and I'm excited to try it out. Taking the place of the mentioned-in-my-last-post nostalgic dreams.
The last card I'll talk about is
I still think that there are lots of people out there underrating this fellow by quite a bit. He has the potential to take away the game basically on the back of his own abilities. And I'm not so convinced that black is poorly suited to helping him:
Cards that help with protecting him, getting him to connect, and even buffing him
Thoughtsieze
Duress
Doom blade
Hero's downfall
Herald of Torment
Blood-chin rager
And green is more than welcome to help along with stuff like
moldervine cloak
become immense
vines of vastwood
briarhorn
All in all, really cool card that I think deserves a chance to shine. I'll finally be taking out
which is fine, but I've almost assuredly overvalued, and really isn't needed with Spider Spawning as a thing.
anyways, I think that's about as far as I've gotten on my most recent tuning spree. Some time along I think I'll have to go into depth about what I've really trying to work towards, archetype wise, methodology-wise, etc. One day. Thanks for reading, as always!
Balancing, or Finally Stepping Far Enough Into the Road to Get Hit by the Truck that is Golgari
Soooo, came to an interesting realization. Maybe. My decks are, in all likelihood, too strong. How much too strong? I'm not sure yet. My top drafter certainly did fantastically last draft with a GB monstrosity. Just drafted a GB deck on my CT, and there were so many options, and so much synergy! Yikes. It's given me a little pause, and makes me want to take a step back a little. One issue I have as a designer, when it comes to designing fully balanced environs, is that I have a lot of experience working with , , and . That could be leading me to accidentally make those colors, or decks working in those colors too strong. So I've gotta come up with a plan. Part zero of the plan is to have a draft the weekend after this coming one, if possible . More testing! But after that I think I need to focus on a couple of things.
). Here is where my mind was immediately made up that this might be a good place to test out some theories from the Emotions Thread. Why try to overlytone down GB? The decks are awesome! Why not give other colors some cooler toys to play with?
The very first card that came to mind was:
"But wait, that card is like super narrow and stuff right?!". Well, in a cube that I am slowly working to shape into a holistic GY environment, is it really? It does a ton of work against a number of things, like:
'Cloaker is more of an incidental hate card, that can also self-power a harvesting engine 3 mana at a time. This card as also awesome. What to do???
Well, I foul two replacements fairly readily. Both from the oft-dreaded Blink archetype:
Respectively. The archetype really doesn't need more help, and this feeds off ideas gleaned from the Non-ETB Thread. There are definitely other enabler cards, such as the awesome Galepowder Mage. My plan is to start with the Angel swap. AoF is more elegant, imo (very important to me), it is a more impactufl body, it is more dramatic, and it gives me an opportunity to gracefully bow out Resto. If that doesn't work, or is too something, then I can Plan-B to the Displacer <->Cloaker swap. I've had Cloaker in my cube before and it's been well liked.
Making only one swap seems... lacking, at the very least. I found one more cool card to grant semi-incidental graveyard hate to decks that already have trouble getting overwhelmed with repeated value:
Lots of people run it and like it, and I already have Terminus. Might as well make it a mini theme! Planning on swapping out the Planar Outburst for it. I definitely think this will help control and potentially even stuff like / midrange deal with the resilience.
Far be it from wanting to stop there. Some other interesting cards that I've noticed for other colors:
One switch I could easily see in my future is switching out Scatter to the Winds for Hinder or Dissipate to further the incidental counter side of the GY-hate that I've got in the form of syncopate. Tempted to go with Hinder first, because it's cooler? Dunno.
Anyways, Thanks for reading as always! I'm excited to try out a few of these swaps as I move along with my EMN swaps, and to see where this takes me! Hoepfully I'll have at least some of these swaps ready by the next time I draft
EDIT: Completely forgot to add it in during my posting, but here's a random GB deck I drafted up on CT earlier today. It just fell together, and the sideboard is still stacked :eek: (For instance, if I end up needing more beef, I can take out something like Asylum Visitor for Scourge of Nel Toth or Nissa, Worldwaker, I have Phyrexian reclamation against control, and Primal Command against Aggro. bonkers.)
Soooo, came to an interesting realization. Maybe. My
decks are, in all likelihood, too strong. How much too strong? I'm not sure yet. My top drafter certainly did fantastically last draft with a GB monstrosity. Just drafted a GB deck on my CT, and there were so many options, and so much synergy! Yikes. It's given me a little pause, and makes me want to take a step back a little. One issue I have as a designer, when it comes to designing fully balanced environs, is that I have a lot of experience working with , , and . That could be leading me to accidentally make those colors, or decks working in those colors too strong. So I've gotta come up with a plan. Part zero of the plan is to have a draft the weekend after this coming one, if possible . More testing! But after that I think I need to focus on a couple of things.- What can I do to help other colors come more fully into their own?
- What am I doing too right, that might be making GB unassailable?
- What steps might I be able to take to directly counterplay the GB/GB-style strategies?
). Here is where my mind was immediately made up that this might be a good place to test out some theories from the Emotions Thread. Why try to overlytone down GB? The decks are awesome! Why not give other colors some cooler toys to play with?The very first card that came to mind was:
"But wait, that card is like super narrow and stuff right?!". Well, in a cube that I am slowly working to shape into a holistic GY environment, is it really? It does a ton of work against a number of things, like:
- Slowing down someone trying to jam cards in the 'Yard for Delve or Delirium
- Turning off recursion engines like GB has
- exiling flashback spells
- Being a 3/4 flier for 4
'Cloaker is more of an incidental hate card, that can also self-power a harvesting engine 3 mana at a time. This card as also awesome. What to do???
Well, I foul two replacements fairly readily. Both from the oft-dreaded Blink archetype:
Respectively. The archetype really doesn't need more help, and this feeds off ideas gleaned from the Non-ETB Thread. There are definitely other enabler cards, such as the awesome Galepowder Mage. My plan is to start with the Angel swap. AoF is more elegant, imo (very important to me), it is a more impactufl body, it is more dramatic, and it gives me an opportunity to gracefully bow out Resto. If that doesn't work, or is too something, then I can Plan-B to the Displacer <->Cloaker swap. I've had Cloaker in my cube before and it's been well liked.
Making only one swap seems... lacking, at the very least. I found one more cool card to grant semi-incidental graveyard hate to decks that already have trouble getting overwhelmed with repeated value:
Lots of people run it and like it, and I already have Terminus. Might as well make it a mini theme! Planning on swapping out the Planar Outburst for it. I definitely think this will help
control and potentially even stuff like / midrange deal with the resilience.Far be it from wanting to stop there. Some other interesting cards that I've noticed for other colors:
One switch I could easily see in my future is switching out Scatter to the Winds for Hinder or Dissipate to further the incidental counter side of the GY-hate that I've got in the form of syncopate. Tempted to go with Hinder first, because it's cooler? Dunno.
Anyways, Thanks for reading as always! I'm excited to try out a few of these swaps as I move along with my EMN swaps, and to see where this takes me! Hoepfully I'll have at least some of these swaps ready by the next time I draft
EDIT: Completely forgot to add it in during my posting, but here's a random GB deck I drafted up on CT earlier today. It just fell together, and the sideboard is still stacked :eek: (For instance, if I end up needing more beef, I can take out something like Asylum Visitor for Scourge of Nel Toth or Nissa, Worldwaker, I have Phyrexian reclamation against control, and Primal Command against Aggro. bonkers.)
Hey, I wanna see this dope GB deck! Even if you don't have a list, what was it doing? Is it a graveyard deck? Cards you can remember? Interactions?
Agreed about not toning this down. Sounds sweet. Sweet decks are sweet.
Agreed about not toning this down. Sounds sweet. Sweet decks are sweet.
You might want to reread the gy hate thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/graveyard-hate.902/
A lot of the graveyard hate us in black green, and if that's where the problem is then you might want to push the focus on Jeskai colours?
Not sure how much your deck above would be affected by it, it looks like quite a pile of good stuff, rather than a focused graveyard deck.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/graveyard-hate.902/
A lot of the graveyard hate us in black green, and if that's where the problem is then you might want to push the focus on Jeskai colours?
Not sure how much your deck above would be affected by it, it looks like quite a pile of good stuff, rather than a focused graveyard deck.
Yeah I used that thread to help me focus a little. Completely forgot to link it though, so thanks!
I'm interested in your last paragraph. How focused do you expect a GY deck to be? 12 or so cards in the deck interact directly with the graveyard, discarding cards, or caring about the GY. That's over half of nonlands! I could increase that interaction more by moving in some SB cards I mention in the spoiler, like Scourge of Nel Toth <-> Asylum Visitor/Life from the Loam mebbe. I think I like this. I want the GY to be a more natural resource than an all in one, and this deck capitalizes 100% on that. And maybe that's part of why it looks so strong to me!
I am duly interested though, if my GB "good stuff" cards might be in too high a quantity relative to other colors. Hmmmm. One thought is to devote a slot or two from B to more dedicated aggro cards, to give RB and WB a little more teeth?
Check out the spoiler tag at the bottom of the post!
I don't even think that it's the best GB can be in the format, tbh.
Deck works on a lot of micro interactions like Heir of FalkenRath + Asylum Visitor or Vengvine or Bloodghast, Genesis + Yavimaya Elder draw engine, Goyf + Tribal, and so on
I can throw a testing vote behind Angel of Finality, which I liked. I actually cut it for Restoration Angel as I powered up my format, funnily enough.
It's interesting that your BG decks are the deepest and strongest - I've been having the same problem with the Jeskai theatres. I'm really hot on the Boros Reckoner combo interactions, which got some great pieces lately in Soulfire Grand Master and Nahiri's Wrath. These are the kinds of decks I'm talking about - goodstuff midrange or control with a combo finish. If you're looking for something fun to do with RW I'd recommend giving it a try.
It's interesting that your BG decks are the deepest and strongest - I've been having the same problem with the Jeskai theatres. I'm really hot on the Boros Reckoner combo interactions, which got some great pieces lately in Soulfire Grand Master and Nahiri's Wrath. These are the kinds of decks I'm talking about - goodstuff midrange or control with a combo finish. If you're looking for something fun to do with RW I'd recommend giving it a try.
It's less about cards that interact with the graveyard, it's more about the deck having a cohesive plan. In the deck you posted it feels strange to me to see for example, bloodghast and seasons past in the same deck. Yes they both have graveyard interactions but they usually see play in decks with different strategic focus. Is this deck aggro, midrange, combo or control?
The other thing is that there isn't many ways for you to easily fill up your graveyard. Wayfinder and heir of falkenrath are the only two ways you can do it easily (there is life from the loam but that's not necessarily efficient). That means you can be stuck hardcasting Genesis for example, which isn't optimal.
I'm not saying you're wrong, or that the deck wouldn't necessarily be successful, it just looks a bit unfocused to me. Just because a card interacts with the graveyard doesn't mean it should be in the same deck.
The other thing is that there isn't many ways for you to easily fill up your graveyard. Wayfinder and heir of falkenrath are the only two ways you can do it easily (there is life from the loam but that's not necessarily efficient). That means you can be stuck hardcasting Genesis for example, which isn't optimal.
I'm not saying you're wrong, or that the deck wouldn't necessarily be successful, it just looks a bit unfocused to me. Just because a card interacts with the graveyard doesn't mean it should be in the same deck.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Those decks do look fun, and I definitely should reinclude Soulfire. How have you liked Nahiri's Wrath? It seems like I could swap it in for Sudden Demise. The more I think, the more this seems like a sweet space to explore, as it can slot into the game plan of Goggles Combo. Nice!
Just trying to dig around for some other examples from my cube. Maybe not the best, but all I can find at the moment.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/577516
A deck Pete drafted from my cube.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/530652
A control version I drafted.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/577516
A deck Pete drafted from my cube.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/530652
A control version I drafted.
Well put! I think the lack of focus may have more to do with me deckbuilding at maximum speed, and less with the potential for focus. Looking back at the CT list, which I can't link from mobile
, I can switch Golgari Thug in for Bloodghast, and the Scourge in for something else, as I mentioned earlier. Additional discard outlet could be gotten from Rotting Rats. So, the deck could be even better than what I threw together! That only makes me realize more that I need to focus a little on Jeskai and getting some toys and counterparts for those decks. Thanks for all the analysis! It's a huge help No problem. Additionally drafters may be pushed towards golgari because you have quite a few cards in it. Whilst you only have three in your cubetutor classification you also have